In the beginning of your fitness journey there is a lot of self-doubt and insecurity surrounding your ability to make this whole thing happen. Two days in you get mugged by a donut in the break room at work, your shopping cart automatically turns down the cookie aisle, you try to run and fall off the couch and trip over the coffee table before you get out the door, and you threw up in the drinking fountain at the gym.

Stage 1 is hell.

Stage 2 is where you trip skinny people on the escalator because you are jealous and even angry that you have to work at this and you are convinced they don't. You look at your journey as what you are giving up, not what you are gaining. Somewhere inside you still think you want this.

Stage 3 is hopefully where the light goes on - not just the in the refrigerator! Like the time you walked an hour to earn 320 calories and ate it back with two Girl Scout cookies!

Then, the transformation begins to happen; you start to notice what everyone else is doing wrong when it comes to their food and exercise. New reformers are a pain the @$$ to those around them. I know I was.

I was before I started this journey.

Here is some stuff I would say/do when I was in Stage 3:

- When I saw someone pouring a gallon of Ranch dressing on their diet salad I would say, "I've been to Hidden Valley and they have live stock - umm which poops - I am not sure if that is what those little black specs are."

- When the party next to me at Golden Corral is eating a tray of baby back ribs I would be tempted to say, "Did you know that pork is supposed to be cooked until it reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees F?"

- When I saw someone drinking Diet Coke I would speak up and say, "Did you know if you leave a penny in that stuff overnight it will shine like new in the morning? And if you do it with a couple of quadrillion pennies you could make a shiny dent in the national US national debt."

- I would sit in the drive-thru at McDonalds and scare away business with fake vomit on my car door or put fake cow patties at the entrance to Burger King.

- I put vitamins in a Ghirardelli bag and resealed it at Walmart.

- I would go shopping in my stinky running clothes and stand guard in the Twinkie aisle.

- When I would see someone at the salad bar filling their plate with bacon bits and croutons, I just sneezed in their direction. "You probably should get another plate."

- I put celery and carrots in trick-or-treat bags on Halloween.

- At Thanksgiving I would drop the gravy and the mashed potatoes on the floor for the dogs. "Sorry folks, just turkey, green beans and creamed onions which no one eats anyway."

- At Christmas I bought everyone new underwear that was one size too small.

- I would take my friends out for dinner and pretended the car ran out of gas in front of Whole Foods.

- At the dentist I would wear a fake tooth and talk about chocolate in the waiting room with the other patients.

- When people asked my how I lost almost a 100 pounds, I would tell them I cut my real legs off with a chainsaw.

- Post recipes on Facebook.

Nah, not really - well except for the recipes. I am shy, so you are safe.

Since the beginning of mankind, religion has often turned the world upside down. Everyone has an opinion about the unseen whether it's good, bad or somewhere in between. They worship, they teach, they hope, they pray, and they even spread the word about their personal enlightenment.

Folks can be just as religious about fitness!

That's right, some of us have become enlightened and now everyone needs to become like us! What, you don't believe me? Here are the basics constructs of religion.

Belief in Supernatural Being, Deity or Absolute: fitness-ians believe that the calories are supernatural. Then sneak in at night and shrink your clothes and meddle with the zero balance on the scale.

Rituals: Morning runs and badass gym sessions, and scale worship is like daily vespers. Then there is something akin to high mass like cheat days.

Moral Code: You must eat clean, lift heavy, do intervals, or zip your pants. There are many factions.

Religious Feelings: I ate donut, I feel fat. I ate a salad I feel skinny. I ran a marathon and I am sore.

Prayer: There are wrote prayers like the names we call the scale. It's a universal language. Then there is the second donut prayer and the skipped my workout prayer before ascending to the Altar of Poundage. (I heard the Brits get stoned there.) Add to this the religious high celebrations like the race PR and PB on the bench press or squat rack.

A World View: Our world is about weight and rarely about fitness. We have a hard time seeing ourselves as we really are. We say it's OK to have curves and type II diabetes. But then we hit a goal or two and sanity clears our vision.

Intolerance: Skinny people make us angry enough to trip them on the escalator at the mall. Heavy lifting experts are just posers, while super-fast runners are just plain raceholes.

Divine Destiny: We are dream of the afterlife of being strong, fast, well defined, sexy and skinny somewhere in life.

Problem of Evil Explained: We know about sugar, Aspartame and GMO's, just ask us!

A Social Group Bound Together: Umm, we are here on MFP and collect out pathetic selves in Facebook running groups.

Belief in a Sacred Scripture: Fad diets and training experts are everywhere, but heretics like me have written their own.

There are a lot MFP-ers that either run, or want to run. Just do a search for "C25K" in the forums; there are millions of entries - well not as many as "Do I Eat My Exercise Calories or Not" - but close. Some of them have made it to Urban Dictionary. (These are from my first book, ICU to Marathon)

If you have not been a runner, or you are new to it, here is some runner's jargon you might find helpful.

- Aerobic: So out of breath that you wish you were dead.- Anaerobic: Aerobic's kid sister.- Bathroom: these are usually port-a-potties - with the emphasis on potty! Bring your own hand sanitizer and possibly a tazer.- Chip: 1. Made of chocolate and the reason you need MFP. 2. Embedded in your number by big brother and the race officials.- Chip Time: The time your chip crossed the finish line. If it is on your person, it's good. If it's in an ambulance it's not so good.- Cool Down: Sudden drop in temperature after guzzling a cold beer or other suitable beverage after a race.- Dedication: To much fiber the day before a race.- DNF: Did Not Finish. Better than DNS: Did Not Start.- DFL: Dead freaking last, Better than a lot of things - well not cookies.- Drafting: Beer after the race- Elite Runner: Not part of MFP.- Fartlek: A winning strategy when others are drafting you.- Gun Time: When some asks you, "How far was this marathon?!"- Hitting the Wall: Mad because you can't find your running shoes.- Intervals: Taking turns watching the kids.- Jog: Remembering your name at the registration table.- Negative Splits: Wearing embarrassingly tight clothing.- Pace: The speed at which you actually can run.- Passing: For gas, mile/kilometer markers and other runners. Mostly good.- Pick-Ups: Asking for phone numbers and Facebook names at the start line.- Pronation: Patriotism.- Race: The obligation to do what you think you can't.- Runner's High: Better than sex. If you run, you know.- Safety Pins: Not as safe as they claim to be, but used for attaching numbers.- Sneakers: Cheap running shoes.- Stinky Feet: Stinky feet.- Supination: 'Merica - Target Heart Rate: Anything greater than let's say 10 beats per hour.- Toebox: What they put your toes in after they are cremated.- Walking: Plum tuckered out.- Wall (The): A place where wailing happens a lot.- Winning: What Charlie Sheen thinks he does.